Great Men

G

GLV

Moderator
All of us have met, known, or read about one or more 'Great Men'

I would like to hear your ideas about 'Great Men'.

I know many would include their fathers, but I would prefer to exclude fathers, tho mine would be on top.

My list of three -- Theodore Roosevelt, Curtis Lemay and a boyhood friend named David. Lemay and Roosevelt need no introduction. David does.

My father worked for David's father, and as our parents also socialized, it fell to David to entertain me. David graduated from a military prep school in May of 44, was in the ETO as a brown bar platoon leader by December of 44, fought and wounded in the Buldge, traded as a POW, and returned to the ZI. After reasonable recovery from serious head and hand wounds, David went to college, and became a very fine educator. David's death, a few years ago, was the end result of the wounds he suffered defending our country. GLV
 
Great Men I admire:

Herbert Hoover. The last President of the U.S. to stand on principle regarding the limits of Federal government authority. Not only did he lose to FDR in 1932 over it, he has been wrongly maligned since in the history books for his supposedly do-nothing attitude.

Jeff Cooper. The man made the art of pistolcraft respectable.

Richard Weaver. Weaver was an American academic who, in the 50s and 60s, was researching the effects of language use in political discourse long before it became fashionable. In particular, he understood the misuse of social science research to promote dubious public policy. Accordingly, his books on the topic (available in any good college library) still have something to teach us today about the politcal biases of "scientific" studies.

John M. Browning. For obvious reasons known to readers here.
 
Frist, "my ideas" on Great Men:

I have known men who were great, but to me, part of the measure of a man is the legacy he leaves. These men I have known might have undergone personal struggle, faced staggering odds or been truely creative, but the feats they have accomplished may be no greater than an alcoholic learning to resist temptation or a business man capitalizing on an opportunity. I believe we are surronded by greatness on a personal level, we just need to learn to recognize and acknowledge it.

Furthermore, our measures of greatness are wholly dependant on our realm of experience. There could be some REALLY Great guy in Ancient Sherpan history that we have no clue about...He could've really rocked.

As I was saying, my defnition of true "Greatness" includes a legacy to society/civilization. Some of my picks may seem odd and may be totally wrong, in some cases I am relying on sketchy history, but they are my picks, which is what George asked for. Obviously, I give a lot of credit to those that came up with (or are credited with) some of western civilization's greatest ideas.

So, I give you my list of History's greatest men: (in alphabetical order, BTW- I think it unlikely that anyone from recent history can be seen in the proper perspective to rank among the "greats"...yet)


John Adams
Aristotle
Robert The Bruce
Leonardo DaVinci
Albert Einstien
Henry Ford
Benjamin Franklin
Stephen Hawking
Thomas Hobbes
Sam Houston
Thomas Jefferson
Muhammad
Alden Partridge
Paul
Hugh De Payens
William Shakespeare
Plato/Socrates
Thucydides
Sun Tzu
John Wycliffe


Of those 21 people...

... several of them may have been at least partly fictionalized by history, so I nominate the persona they represent.

.....At least 6 of them played direct roles in making the "theoretical US of A" the greatest country in the history of civilization. We owe to them any chance we have of achieving the kind of lives we want, at least I feel I do.

.....The ones that relate to religion I nominated solely for their tangible impact on civilization, not for any spiritual reason.

.....One of them is still alive.


------------------
-Essayons
 
Mannerheim (of the Winter War fame) gets on my list.

I would have to leave off people like Browning, Whitney and Edison, as they were great inventors, not necessarily great men.
 
While I admire Theodore Roosevelt very much, I must deplore his activities in the Progressive political movement. This is the political movement that brought us Prohibition and the idea that government should be a prime mover in the resolution of social ills. Look at the results all around us.

Plato? Read The Republic. Definitely a great philosopher but a great man?

Socrates was great.

Muhammed. Great man. A shame his viewpoint got so twisted.

I would nominate Belisarius for the greatest general of all time. If you look at the odds he won against, with the available resources he had and the political climate he dealt with throughout his career-his achievements are mindboggling. No other general comes close.

Sun Tzu? Definitely the greatest strategist of all time. B. F. Liddell-Hart once said that The Art of War, in one slim volume, contained as much or more of the fundamentals of strategy as he had managed to convey in over twenty volumes.

Curtis LeMay was a great proponent of air power. He was a great Air Force general. If he had obtained political power we would probably glow in the dark.

Cornered rat, if we adopt Rob's definition of great men as the legacy they leave...these men as inventors would definitely have to be considered great men.

Nikola Tesla with the inventors.
He invented radio despite what the history books say. Look up the patents.

He invented the electric motor. Fluorescent lights. Our electrical transmission system.

He did not produce prototypes. When he set pen to paper he produced a working model ready for production.

Many of his inventions are everday items. He didn't get much public credit and died penniless. But check out his patents...they are online and will astound you.

Joan of Arc. The savior of France. The first time she was in a courtroom she destroyed the prosecution's case against her. The first time she saw an army she led it to victory. The first time she held a sword she won in combat against veterans. She is unique in history. Read Mark Twain's essay on her life. If you can find it in English, read the record of her trial by the English. If you are looking for "evidence" of the existence of God instead of relying on faith-look here. For as Mark Twain stated, if she was only a genius then she was a genius unique. It took 14 years to train a knight to ride and fight armored. She did it in a day and won. Everything she turned her hand to she accomplished without training of any kind. She asked but for one thing in return for her accomplishments-the abatement of taxes in perpetuity for her home village.
French kings granted this to her and it was in effect until cancelled by the French revolutionists. Consider the history of France since that day... If I was a Frenchmen I would be agitating for the return of her request.
 
Abebe Bikila

------------------
A free people ought not only to be armed but disciplined;
George Washington Jan 8,1790--There can be no doubt about the Second Amendment.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top